Meanwhile, back at the Central Institute for Weather Control, where Igor’s father works, there’s dire news. “We’ve just been informed,” the head meteorologist says, “that the last remaining imperialists, hiding on a remote island, have tested a banned meson weapon. During the test, there was an explosion of unprecedented strength, which destroyed the entire island and simultaneously created atmospheric disturbances around the planet.”

Someone put together a video version of the slide, with horrendous loud music - if you choose to watch it, I suggest that you turn the sound way down or mute it. There are no translations of the slides, but the Moscow Times has the whole set with translations.

March 11th, 1811 is a black-letter day in the annals of Nottinghamshire. It witnessed the commencement of a series of riots which, extending over a period of five years, have, perhaps, no parallel in the history of a civilized country for the skill and secrecy with which they were managed, and the amount of wanton mischief they inflicted.

I'm afraid for all those who will have the bread snatched from their mouths by these machines... What business does science and capitalism got, bringing all these new inventions into the works, before society has produced a generation educated up to using them!

By his very success in inventing labor-saving devices, modern man has manufactured an abyss of boredom that only the privileged classes in earlier civilizations have ever fathomed.*

~ Lewis Mumford (1895-1990) ("The Challenge of Renewal," in The Conduct of Life)

The mass Luddite trial at York

Industrial man - a sentient reciprocating engine having a fluctuating output, coupled to an iron wheel rotating with uniform velocity. And then we wonder why this should be the golden age of revolution and mental derangement.

March 11 is the anniversary of the first of the Luddite (wiki) riots in 1811, at the village of Arnold near Nottingham, England, where a group of disgruntled hand weavers, concerned with the threat of newly introduced textile machinery to their livelihood, smashed a number of knitting frames. Supposedly led by a young apprentice, Ned Ludd, the movement spread quickly to other textile-producing areas in Yorkshire and Lancashire, and widespread damage was done to textile machinery.

The riots were put down by the British government with the army and with draconian punishments: the troops were sent in to control the Luddites, and the government followed it up with the Frame Breaking Act of 1812 which made the breaking of machines a capital felony. They held a mass trial of those caught in 1813 and executed 17 men - others were sent to penal colonies. The harsh punishments meted out did stop the Luddite protests, but in all between 60 and 70 people were executed.**

Although the Luddites were not opposed to machinery per se - but rather to the devaluing of their specialized skills by its introduction to the industry - the term Luddite has come to be applied pejoratively to anyone opposed to modern technology and its sociological effects. Be that as it may, that same issue arises today with the spread of automation and its inevitable elimination of many jobs. On the other hand, as Czech writer, Karel Cepad (1890-1938) has noted,

"Man will never be enslaved by machinery if the man tending the machine be paid enough."

* N.B. I am reminded of Voltaire's famous observation, "Work banishes those three great evils - poverty, boredom, and vice."

** English historian Eric Hobsbawm (1917-2012) has called the Luddites' wrecking of machinery as "collective bargaining by riot."

Monday, March 6, 2017

The world's first 'smart condom' which rates a man's sexual performances and can detect STIs has been created by scientists.

The i-Con Smart Condom is billed as the newest form of wearable technology in the ever-growing market.

Providing a range of statistics, including duration, speed and girth measurements, male users are able to assess their sexual prowess.

The device also records the amount of calories burnt, different positions and can detect chlamydia and syphilis.

It turns out the device is not a condom at all, but rather, a ring that fits over a boring, standard-issue condom and measures the quality of sex based on several metrics, including speed of thrusts, calories burned, and duration of session.

In March 1933, a unified Germany held its last relatively free election before WWII. Hitler had already become Chancellor but he held one last election, seeking a mandate under which to rule. This map shows which areas of Germany supported the Nazi Party most strongly.

However, it’s also important to note that while the Nazis won the most seats in 1933, they did not win a majority of them or the popular vote.

Support varied widely across the country. It was highest in the former Prussian territories in the north-east of Germany (with the exception of Berlin) and much weaker in the west and south of the country, which had, up until 1871, been independent German states.

Across Germany as a whole, the Nazis won 43.91% of the popular vote and got 44.51% of the seats. This made them by far the largest party in the German Reichstag, but still without a clear majority mandate.

Today is the anniversary of the birth of Italian painter, sculptor, architect, and poet Michelangelo Buonarrotti (1475-1564) (wiki), arguably the greatest artist who ever lived. Born in Caprese, Michelangelo apprenticed under the painter Ghirlandaio but then developed his art under the patronage of Lorenzo de Medici in Florence, later departing for Bologna and Rome. In the latter, he produced his sublime Pietà before returning to Florence in 1501, where he created his colossal David.

Ordered back to Rome in 1505 by Pope Julius II at first to begin work on the pope's tomb, Michelangelo, was instead commissioned to fresco the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which occupied him between 1508 and 1512. (He would paint his startling Last Judgment on the end wall of the Sistine Chapel two decades later.)

Many of Michelangelo's most celebrated works were sculpted for the abortive Julian monument and the Medici Chapel in Florence between 1515 and 1534, but at the same time, he produced a series of celebrated paintings, such as the Conversion of Paul and The Martyrdom of Peter. Late in life, Michelangelo was named the chief architect of St. Peter's basilica in Rome and was largely responsible for the present dome. His verse includes lyric poems, madrigals, and sonnets, some of which have been set to music by composers as diverse as Benjamin Britten and Dmitri Shostakovich.

From the sublime to the mundane, he was still an artist - below is one of his surviving grocery lists (via Open Culture):

“Because the servant he was sending to market was illiterate,” writes the Oregonian‘s Steve Duin in a review of a Seattle Art Museum show, “Michelangelo illustrated the shopping lists — a herring, tortelli, two fennel soups, four anchovies and ‘a small quarter of a rough wine’ — with rushed (and all the more exquisite for it) caricatures in pen and ink.”